Much Ado About Mutton, but Not in These Parts

By R. W. APPLE Jr.

Published: March 29, 2006

HAVING buckled on his broadsword in the past to fight for organic farming and against modern architecture, the Prince of Wales recently launched a crusade to reawaken Britain's taste for mutton, which he calls ''my favorite dish.''

C'mon, now. The guy must be kidding, right? This must be some sly sendup, maybe a belated payback for Monty Python's cheeky ''Life of Brian.'' Fergus Henderson's marrow bones, pigs' ears and calves' heads are one thing. But mutton?

Yes, mutton. The very stuff that a troll so memorably complains about in ''The Hobbit'' by J. R. R. Tolkien: ''Mutton yesterday, mutton today, and blimey, if it don't look like mutton again tomorrer.''

Until it fell from favor after World War II, it was a favorite of most Britons, who prized mutton (defined there as the meat from sheep at least 2 years old) above lamb (from younger animals) for its texture and flavor. It has a bolder taste, a deeper color and a chewier consistency. Now, chefs recruited by the Prince, including luminaries like Jamie Oliver, have joined in singing the praises of well-aged mutton, and fashionable restaurants like Le Gavroche have restored it to their menus.

Most Americans have never tasted mutton. In this country, mutton chop whiskers and leg of mutton sleeves, however outr?are far more common than mutton itself. But we and our Anglo-Saxon cousins are in the minority. Mutton is consumed in quantity, and with great gusto, in France, Africa, the Caribbean, the Middle East, India, parts of China, Australia and New Zealand, which leads the world in all things sheepish.

So what is it with us? Or rather, what is it with you? For myself, I yield to no man in fondness for Toulouse-style cassoulet, made with breast of mutton. I love haricot de mouton, a casserole of creamy white beans and mutton, an abiding passion of Victor Hugo's that you will often find at Chez Denise in Paris, one of the last surviving bistros in the area where Les Halles once stood. And I'm not exactly averse to the toothsome, golden-brown Moroccan roast mutton known as mechoui.

Although most mutton preparations are rustic, like those I've mentioned, there are also more opulent dishes like the biryanis made in Hyderabad in India, amalgams of mutton, rice, cashews, onions, mint and spices like cloves and cinnamon.

One American who knows a thing or two about good mutton is Jamie Nicoll, the proprietor of Summerfield Farm in the rolling hills of the Virginia piedmont, 90 miles southwest of Washington, which supplies beef, lamb and veal to chefs like Gunther Seeger in Atlanta and Charlie Trotter in Chicago. So one scintillating morning in March my wife, Betsey, and I drove down to his farmhouse, built around 1820, near the hamlet of Locust Dale. The house inhabits a stretch of countryside that captivates the springtime visitor, with horses idling under their blankets in paddocks bounded by white fences, the enigmatic Blue Ridge Mountains rising to the west and forsythia, Bradford pear trees and daffodils in bursting bloom -- an archetype of Jefferson's agrarian ideal.

Mr. Nicoll, 50, greeted us with an apology. Despite his best efforts, he said, he had failed to find a piece of mutton suitable for our lunch. Even if he had succeeded in doing so, he explained, he could not have served it in good conscience.

''Hanging is a prerequisite for eating mutton, as far as I'm concerned,'' he told us. He dry-ages lamb (and mutton, when he can get it) for as long as three weeks, either in a walk-in cooler or outdoors if the weather is cold enough. Doing so breaks down tough connective tissues, tenderizing the meat and gentling its pumped-up flavor.

Instead of mutton, he served us the next best thing, a stout shoulder of lamb with its cap of ivory fat intact. He had started it off in the oven of his big Vulcan range at 500 degrees for 25 minutes, to caramelize it, then turned the heat down to 200 degrees. It roasted slowly, ever so slowly, for the entire morning, emerging juicy and tender and altogether irresistible, the skin cracker-crisp, the meat still slightly pink.

''You let the fat ooze through it,'' Mr. Nicoll said as we nibbled on smoked salmon and his own slab bacon in the kitchen, ''but once that has happened, you take it out. Right away. Leave it in, and the meat will turn tough and dry.''

Mr. Nicoll's wife, Rachel, is English, as was Mr. Nicoll's father. Their house, with uncarpeted heart-pine floors, a half-dozen dogs scurrying underfoot and logs blazing in the fireplaces in the kitchen and the dining room, has such a feel of Yorkshire about it that you half expect James Herriot to come bounding through the door at any moment.

Helped along by an excellent South Australian shiraz, we made short work of the lamb and its festive accomplices -- spinach, red cabbage and Yorkshire puddings with veal sweetbreads. By the time I had polished off a second helping proffered by our genially patrician host, I had almost convinced myself that I was eating mutton. Mmm. The flavor was certainly robust enough, the texture was right, but putting wishful thinking aside I realized that our lamb was a bit too far removed from the barnyard to measure up to the mutton of Prince Charles's culinary dreams.